Pat Rollins: Perfect fall setting for fishin' trip

Tuesday

Sep 30, 2008 at 3:15 AMSep 30, 2008 at 4:45 AM

By Pat RollinsThe Outdoorsman

When my buddy Pete dropped by the other day I thought he'd stopped to talk about bow hunting. However, he was planning on putting his bass boat up for the season soon and invited me to join him for one last trip to a small nearby lake.

"Ohhh I think we'll catch some fish," I added. "That place is loaded with pickerel and I can't wait to give some of my Daredevils a workout."

Sunday morning after we'd both spent a couple hours in the tree stands hunting deer; we met at the boat ramp. By the time I arrived he already had the boat off the trailer and was sitting on the bow waiting.

"When I looked at my watch I thought I would be getting a call saying you were out tracking a buck," he said when I walked down the road with my tackle box and a handful of spinning rods.

"No such luck," I replied. "The only thing I got this morning was wet!"

"Me too," he added with a laugh. "What do you say we shove off and see if we can catch some pickerel before the skies open up again?"

I handed him my gear and after we strapped the rods to the deck, Pete eased us away from shore and headed us up the eastern shoreline to a huge submerged weed bed where we were hoping to find a few pickerel eager to grab our lures.

"I'm gonna keep us out on the edge of those weeds so we can work our baits over the weeds in the deeper water," he said as he shut off the big motor and dropped the electric trolling motor over the bow.

I grabbed my favorite spinning rod and jumped up on the back casting deck and began to key in on a long weed bed that paralleled the shoreline in about eight feet of water. I pitched my first cast behind the boat with an old red and white daredevil and brought it back to the boat with a steady retrieve. I really thought I was going to nail a fish on my first cast, but my first dozen went untouched.

When I turned my attention closer to shore and threw a cast near some isolated lily pads, I got a hard strike just as my lure past the pads.

"There he is!" I yelled as I set the hook on what turned out to be a 17-inch long pickerel.

"Not a bad way to start," Pete replied as he heaved another cast close to another patch of lily pads.

"Would you look at the color on those maple trees right there," he said. "I've got to put this rod down for a minute and take a few pictures.

"You do that," I said with a chuckle as I set the hook on another small pickerel. "I'll just keep catching fish."

While my buddy snapped a bunch of photos of the brilliant red, orange and yellow leaves, I continued to make casts near the small patches of lily pads on the edges of the thicker weeds.

When Pete spotted a hot looking spot, he slid the camera back into his pocket and cast his own red and white daredevil close to a small clump of pads. As the lure wobbled past the pads, I watched as he reacted to a strike.

"There he is man," he yelled. "Right there… He was right there under those lily pads."

I could tell from the whine of the drag that he had a pretty good one. But when he pulled a 24-incher along side the boat I think we were both surprised.

"Hold it up so I can get a picture," I said. "It'll be a great shot with that brilliant foliage in the background."

We spent a couple more hours working the weeds with daredevils. We managed to catch another handful of smaller pickerel ranging from a foot to 15-inches long before the rain moved in again and we headed for the boat ramp.

"It sure was a pretty day to fish," Pete said. "I like being outdoors during foliage season, catching fish is a bonus."

Pat Rollins writes on the outdoors for The Citizen.

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